he ain't heavy (he's my meatbag)
by broken halleluiah
Summary: In the non-hallucinogenic, waking world of "The Sting", Bender takes the helm of the Planet Express ship and struggles to cope with the mortality of meatbags. Even if said "coping" involves stealing an internal organ or two.
1. Chapter 1

**You, as the reader, have just realized that Bender was the only one uninjured after the bee attack on the Sting, so the logical question is what happened in the time that the humans were out of commission?**

**This story is the result of (1.) an overdose of Futurama, (2.) watching the episode in question in the middle of the night, (3.) three subsequent snow days and (4.) being home sick. I don't know why it's in the second person. That's the way my brain threw it up. I know a lot of people don't like that style, but... I don't mind it, soooo... **

**I couldn't decide whether to upload this story in one giant chunk or a few little ones. I opted with little ones. Enjoy, especially all you other snowed-in souls. :)**

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You've always known that humans were pretty pathetically fragile, ever since that day Fry shouldn't have gargled with battery acid, but it's never exactly been _your_ problem until now. You only watch the window long enough to ensure that the bee you've ejected is really gone before turning around and finding yourself waaay in over your head.

At first glance, Fry appears to be the one with the much bigger issue, what with that honking stinger sticking _through_ his back. Doubled over with his arms around his middle, he's fallen away from Leela, who is still shrieking like a space banshee. His eyes are wide like he hasn't registered what's happened yet. Like some of the pain is still on its way in.

"Oh God," Fry whispers to you. "What's happening to me?"

You bend down in front of him and perform a cursory medical inspection. "See now, It's Doctor Bender's professional opinion that you've been impaled. Don't look at it, it's a little nauseating."

"Oh God," Fry moans again. He reaches for the stinger with shaking hands and then drops them again, breathing shallowly. "Pull it out, Bender. Just yank, fast, like a band-aid." He shuts his eyes and convulses violently.

"Gee, I'd love to, but it's the only thing keeping your blood and guts off the shiny clean floor."

Your casual tone doesn't seem to reassure him. Wimp. The thing is, you've been impaled three times this month already, and you sort of have to remind yourself that it's different for mammals, and he's probably only overreacting a bit.

"Just relax. It missed your heart and lungs and if you'd got the poison, by now you'd be-"

That's when you stop because Leela is still screaming soul-scraping background noise, but when you turn, she's moving blubbery lips that don't seem to be forming any actual words. And she hasn't made a move toward Fry. Resistant though she may be to his advances, she should at least be bossing you around, putting in her two cents on his impalement. She points and screams instead at the empty air in front of her. At nothing.

There's a bloody pinprick of a hole in her shirt and her skin is gray. You touch her face and come away with your metal fingers red-hot. Leela's next scream bubbles up into a trickle of drool that escapes down her chin, and that's it. She's barely breathing, her eye frozen open, unseeing.

"My stomach," Fry wails behind you. He hisses through his teeth. "Oh, I think I'm dying."

"No, you aren't. Shut up. Leela is."

This may have been the wrong thing to say, because Fry suddenly sobs, which obviously hurts the moron more than anything. "Where is she? _Where is she_?" The idiot fell the wrong way. His back is to her. Fry sobs again, with less force.

You drop Leela's wrist, which is barely thumping out a recognizable pulse, and seat yourself in her captain's chair. "Well, guess we're going to the hospital. Who wants to drive? Volunteers?" Okay, that'd be you. "Hang on, this could be a little bumpy."

Fry's moans are like fingernails on the chalkboard of your mind as you dodge between asteroids, and no matter how many times you scream at him to _shut up so you can concentrate_, he just keeps carrying on. What does he expect you to do, come back and hold his hand and play Florence Nightingale? You've got a ship to fly to save their damn lives.

He's crying again, or trying to. Humans are supposed to pass out when they are in so much pain, aren't they? For God's sake, Fry fainted that day you stapled his itinerary to his hand, and that can't be anything close to being impaled. But still, he's stubbornly conscious and whimpering Leela's name from time to time. You should have kicked him in the head before you took the controls, to shut him up. But no, that's supposed to be a bad idea. If you did that, he might not wake up at the hospital.

Leela is silent. Why doesn't he follow her example?

_His last thought will be of her. And her last thought was thunk a long time ago._ Neither of them will ever know how you tried to save them.

You really should go kick him in the head, so he stops feeling it. But you can't remove your hands from the steering wheel, they're practically welded on. And definitely not shaking.

You glance over your shoulder at Leela to make sure she's really out. If she knew that you knew how to fly the ship, you'd have to do actual work around here.

"You see nothing. No work is being done here whatsoever," you tell your compatriots.

Fry hyperventilates.

From your seat, you extend one arm back and find his hand, drop it into Leela's clammy one, and when he grasps it he finally shuts up.

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**There's more coming, probably. Reviews make the world go round!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Thanks for the favorites AND the reviews, mishshoni and Sophisticated Shut In! You guys made me feel welcome :) I gotta admit it's kind of nice to still be on the front page of the news feed. I've only ever posted in Hunger Games or Doctor Who, where your stories are buried in other submissions within hours.**

**This could probably be better, but... meh. I wanted to post something before I headed out of town for the weekend. Plus, it's Bender. You can't go wrong there.**

**I own Futurama.**

**...no, I don't.**

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The waiting room is chilly, probably. This fat ugly nurse keeps coming by to offer you a blanket, but you wave her away. You're as cold and metal as the chair you're sitting in.

Pulling up to the emergency dock was admittedly a hassle- you elbowed a few galactic ambulances out of the way with the nose of the spaceship, which got you scolded and ticketed, but the important part is that it _didn't _stop the paramedics from swarming the Planet Express ship. You had to leap out of the captain's seat and holler at them to _quit fussing over Fry's stinger _for a moment and notice the purple-haired girl quietly gasping for breath beside him. She was worse off than he was, if that were possible.

That was many hour-long minutes ago. Now you sit with your arms crossed in the cold metal folding chair and wait.

Look at all these flabby meatbags sitting around and waiting with you. Most of them came from the fifteen-ship-pile-up caused by that truck hitting that bee. Some of them talk on the phone in hushed voices, some of them cry, but a whole lot of them stare at you. What's the robot doing in the human hospital?

Same thing they are, without all the whining and worrying and... What are those meatbags doing in the corner? Praying? _Please_, you've got the upper hand in that, too. You met God once, and he couldn't have forgotten a face like yours so easily.

(You silently promise that if you ever get a race of midget aliens stuck to your ass again, you'll treat them like _kings_.)

A doctor with a clipboard seats himself beside you and asks about their medical history. You wax on about Fry's recent stapler injury, and his recent electric shock, and the incident with the food processor. Then you describe Leela's biology as closely to a human's as you can _without _giving away that she's mutant. But does that matter? Will it kill her if they don't know?

Ah, she'd probably rather die than get deported. It's your call now, anyway. And she always complains that you have no responsibilities.

The doctor emerges again after yet another eternity. He has good news _and _bad news. The Professor would be proud, or incensed. But he can only tell it to the next of kin, which in this case, happens to be their adopted robot son. Or so you insist.

"_Mr. Fry's prognosis is surprisingly good, barring complications from the transplant. He'll be in recovery for quite some time."_

"Transplant?" you ask offhandedly.

"Yes. His spleen was totalled by that stinger, and he'll need a replacement."

You thrust a hand into the air eagerly. "I hereby volunteer to donate whatever the hell he needs!"

The man squirms in his lab coat, clearing his throat and glancing uncomfortably at your metalness. "Excuse me, sir…"

"Hey, you didn't say it had to be mine," you point out sharply. "Unless, what, does it need to be a relative?"

"Oh, no, no. I mean, we want a close match, but that shouldn't be any problem whatsoever." The doctor chuckles sort of nervously and you do the same, but actually, you have a hacksaw in your abdominal compartment and you've seen more than a few people nodding off in the waiting room. Your offer still stands.

The doctor's face darkens then. "I need to be honest with you. Miss Leela is very, _very_ ill. The poison has been counteracted, and when we administered the antidote her fever lowered dramatically. We fully expect her to pull through but... it's just too soon to know how great the damage was to her brain."

"Brain damage?" you echo. "You mean like… she'll live but she'll be stupid?"

Well, that would be better than television.

"Not quite, sir. She's in a coma now. She… she might not wake up."

You shut your eyes for a moment. It figures. You met God once, and one out of two was about the best you could hope for. The _jerk_.

You're glad it's Fry, though. He appreciates your company much more, and is more willing to gorge himself on your cooking, and besides, the apartment would be pretty deathly quiet without him. You can always get a new captain, anyway, one with a pair of eyes, one that doesn't try to throw your lives away every chance she gets with stupid bees and crap like looking brave.

Wonder what's on TV.

You change the channel and blare a cop show until some tearful family hangs up a phone and tells you that you're watching too loudly, and you shout back that they're _grieving _too loudly, for God's sake.

One by one, the bated-breathers empty out of the waiting room as news, good or bad, arrives. There are only three people left now. Three people and two purses and a leather wallet, all of which you wash down with alcohol until you belch fire, a normally satisfying sensation.

They can't take your booze away without a fight, but the nurse demands that you step outside to smoke, what with pathetic human lungs and all.

Stinkin', filthy, pathetic humans.

(They passed you on the way in, on the gurneys. Fry had lost his grip on her hand, and his consciousness.)

Down the hall, some idiot shrieks as he tries to plug his phone into the wall and comes away with electrified hair and a burned finger. "_Why hasn't anybody come in to fix this yet?_" he shouts. What a Fry thing to do.

Your own finger plunges into the socket as far as it can reach, later. The last thing you remember is the current rushing up through your mind and buzzing louder than anything.

Even louder than Leela screaming at nothing.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hello again... oops. I forgot to tell you this story wasn't over yet. Yeah, I got more. Did I mention there were a _lot _of snow days involved? I'm just de-crapping the chapters right now, hopefully, a little. From now on I'll tell you if it's over or not. XD**

**Thanks for the reviews!**

* * *

The rest of the crew has materialized in the waiting room when you wake up, all going about their usual activities. The Professor is sleeping, Zoidberg is sobbing hysterically, and Hermes, having flushed a legal notification to Leela's parents in the sewer (which Amy promptly followed with a sweetly-worded reassurance), is trying to convince you not to sue Planet Express Enterprises.

You accede eventually. You can't prove the dent in your pinky finger is from the bee incident (and _not_ from being crammed into an electrical socket), and you wipe away crocodile tears when you learn that you aren't allowed to sue for emotional trauma. Apparently, the warranty on your emotion chip was important and you should have kept it up to date.

"I just can't believe this is happening," Amy whispers solemnly, her arms wrapped around her knees. "The Professor always says they could get maimed or brutally killed on the deliveries, but... it just doesn't feel real until it's actually happening." She sniffles.

"Zoidberg's friends are in danger! And they won't even let Zoidberg back to help with surgery, they won't," the lobster cries. "I can't allow my friends to die without my help!"

"But that's what they _do_," you put in, though you've been pretending not to listen for hours. "Humans die, right?"

_There he goes again. _Amy rolls her eyes. _Spluh…_

"All of them?"

"Yes, Bender. Everyone dies sooner or later," Hermes says wearily, as if this is the thousandth time you've been over this simple concept together. "That's why the word 'inevitable' has been trademarked by Orbiting Meadows funeral homes." His eyes shift, waiting for someone to jump out and charge him royalties just for mentioning it.

"So if they're gonna die sooner or later, why is it better for it to be later?" You glance around the room at the others. "Now's as good a time as any, am I right?"

It's like the whole crew downloads the same look of horror simultaneously.

"Bender, you've said a lot of terrible things to me, most of them this morning, but that is easily the most terrible thing I've ever heard," Amy hisses, glaring a hole into your head.

"Well, I don't take a day off when the rest of you numbskulls do," you say acidically, but not without some pride.

(The thing you don't say is that you're still desperately waiting for an answer.)

"Any news, Professor?" Hermes asks, motioning to the buzzer in the old man's lap that is supposed to be keeping the next of kin informed. The other one was flushed down the toilet, with the letters. Someone ratted out the adopted robot son, unfortunately, so the updates have to come through the geezer now.

"Nothing so far," Farnsworth says drowsily, but a moment after his eyes land on you, he jerks wide awake. "But the real important question, Bender, is did you get the honey?"

For a moment, you don't even remember. "Honey?"

"Yes, the space honey. The extraordinarily valuable and tasty medicinal space honey that I sent you for. Did you end up getting any?"

For the next moment, all you can see is red. "You mean before or after we all got violently killed?"

"Either or."

Amy and Hermes and that gross lobster thing look from you to the Professor with bated breath, because your eyes are glowing with a rage that could shortly mean the end of every living thing in the vicinity. But you don't say anything.

With a slow, methodical movement, you open your chest cavity and retrieve a small jar full of the syrupy stuff. You shoot out the extension in your arm and smash the fragile glass over the Professor's head, laughing maniacally as space honey sprays up on the walls, mixing with the various fluids that humans exude when you bash their skulls in. The Professor crumples to the ground, and somewhere behind you Amy screams-

No, better not.

_Simulation Aborted._

Instead, you extend your arm to him painstakingly slowly. "Splendid!" he cries, grabbing for the jar. You let him grasp it but don't immediately let go.

Unfortunately, you need him alive right now.

"How's your spleen, Professor?" you hiss ominously, jerking him closer by the jar until you are staring directly into his foggy, thick glasses.

He blinks back at you vacantly.

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**Haha. Hopefully this isn't too murderously disturbing... for Bender? Nah... XD Just... don't worry about it!**

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**This is Not The End**


	4. Chapter 4

**Hello all. Here's some more :) I like this chapter, I hope you do, too!**

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Four in the morning, and the only sound in the waiting room is a ticking clock. The dimness closes in behind you as you wade through shadows to the chair in which the ugly old man snores.

So peaceful. Functioning so well for such a little old freak.

And now he's got his precious jar of space honey resting on the table beside him. At least he'll have that last small victory. Yeah, you'll give him that. Someone ought to enjoy the fruits of their labor, after all.

You pull a scalpel from your compartment, rip open his lab coat, and glance over the chart of the human body one last time. The upper left. Under some muscles and crap. Got it. Well, this'll be over soon enough.

You draw the sharp blade back, but just before you can make the first incision, the buzzer in the Professor's lap starts vibrating with a passion, and he jolts awake to read the display.

"Good news, everyone!" he shouts, and for the first time, it really is. "My uncle is out of surgery!"

"They got that new spleen in, huh?" you ask innocently, shoving the scalpel inside yourself once more.

(That could have been an embarrassing misunderstanding.)

* * *

"Everyone's back there now. But they're serious about this, Bender. No booze. No smoking. No swearing or they'll kick you out so fast- You can't upset him."

"Yeah, yeah, I got it."

You try to shove Amy out of the way, but she grabs your arm and you don't have time to detach it. "Wait. There's one thing you need to know before you talk to him." She glances down uncomfortably. "He, um... he doesn't know about Leela yet."

You hiss through your teeth.

"We were afraid he wouldn't, you know, focus on getting better. They just told him that she's sleeping, so don't-"

"I don't wanna talk about that psychopath, anyway," you snap, and push past her.

The door to the hospital room is open a crack, and Fry sees you through the crowd of people around his bed. "Bender!" he calls out with a laugh.

He laughs. How dare he laugh. He freaking died in the spaceship, and went unconscious on the gurney, how _dare _he be happy to see you.

"I was just asking where you-"

"Why don't you just shut up, you _bastard?!_" You shout, slamming the door into the wall, even though it's already open. You storm over to the hospital bed and jam a finger between the moron's bloodshot eyes. "Yeah, I'd hope you'd be so happy to see this face! You owe me a _fat _one, meatbag. In case you don't _realize_, I saved your sorry, pathetic meatbag _aaaa-haaa-haass..."_

"Hey, it's alright," Fry interrupts, much quieter than before, because suddenly you are sobbing so hard that something's rattling inside you. Probably the scalpel. "I'm okay now. You didn't give me a chance to say thanks yet."

He gives you a bleary-eyed smile and lowers your head onto his shoulder. You came in here to shout at him, not so he could make you feel better. You don't _wanna_ feel better, damn it, but you can't bring yourself to let go.

"_I didn't know what was going to happen,"_ you wail into his pathetic meatbag shoulder.

Fry squeaks, and you jerk back, slightly hysterical, to see the bandage around his middle. You keep forgetting. It's so easy to forget how easy it is to hurt them.

The rest of the crew eyes you warily, like you're a time bomb they're afraid will blow again. The fat nurse glares, but evicting you would upset your friend much more than anything you possibly could say.

The others try to pick up the fragments of conversation, then. Hermes hands Fry a clipboard to coerce him into signing away his right to sue Planet Express. Zoidberg hungrily inquires exactly what the doctors did with the old, totaled spleen. Amy asks to see his stitches, at which point Fry proudly throws off the covers and starts to unwrap the bandages.

"No, you have to keep those on, sugar," the nurse insists. When he isn't looking, she sticks him full of more morphine. "Wouldn't want to rip your stitches, now."

"Don't tell me what I want," Fry argues, a little woozily. "Jagged bloody wounds are _macho_." He tugs the sleeve of the nurse's scrub. "Can I at least show Leela my gaping hole? When she wakes up, I mean?"

"_Of course, sugar,_" she calmly promises.

Since you haven't technically stopped crying since you walked in the door, it's not all that suspicious when you burst into tears again. But Fry's eyebrows knit together, though, and the nurse starts making slicing-across-her-throat gestures. You stuff a metal fist into your mouth, but it doesn't help much.

Amy takes your arm and silently leads you back to the waiting room. She sits beside you and pats your back, and if she would only _leave_, you could plug into the electrical socket again.

"Wow… we didn't even think… you must have been terrified," the girl whispers in a way that she- for no earthly reason- seems to think is soothing.

_Not terrified just sick of her ugly face- so what if you were- what about it- shut the hell up._

She still doesn't leave except to grab a blanket from the nurse's station and drape it over your shoulders. You try to tell her that you're a robot and you're supposed to be cold and metal, but then your teeth are chattering too hard to speak.

_What is she staring at? _

"Sorry, it's just we- I forget that you actually have emotions when, um, stuff like this isn't happening," Amy admits.

"And I forget that you guys _die _when stuff like this isn't happening," you snap.

She stays for a long time, oscillating between talking and breathing too loudly. When she finally goes back to sit with Leela for a while, you lunge for the socket, only to find that the flaw has been discovered and the power's shut off. You don't know who flipped the breaker switch, but when you find the bastard, mark your words, he is _dead_.

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**I think there will be two more chapters... so stay tuned! **

**Put a review in my sad clinking tin cup please :)**


	5. Chapter 5

**Back again! Sorry it's been a while. The next chapter will be the last. Hope you enjoy :) :)**

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"Get your feet off the bed," Fry says rather haughtily, swatting at your ankles. "She doesn't want your feet on the bed."

"Yeah, who died and made you the coma whisperer?" You grumble, propping your feet back up on the mattress as soon as he looks away. It'll be ages before he turns away from Leela's unconscious form again. "I thought you'd be happy to have a little back-up in here. Everybody was sayin' you haven't slept since Tuesday."

_Tuesday_ being the third day after he woke up, andthe first day he wasn't on enough drugs to accept the word "resting".

_("Resting where, though? What room is she in? Can I see her? Has she asked to see me? Well, what _has_ she said?"_

"_What do mean she hasn't-"_

_"Can I please just-"_

_And then to you- "What aren't they telling me?" -With shaking hands balled up in sheets- "My God, it's her eye, isn't it? Just give it to me straight, Bender… She's lost her eye, and that's why she can't see me!")_

Moron.

Fry adjusts his jacket around Leela's shoulders for maximum insulation. It doesn't help her look any less like a cold, lifeless corpse. But that's appropriate anyway, because she really is dead. No, not dead. What's that other word? Dying.

"I've dozed a little. But it doesn't really matter because…" Fry nods off mid-sentence, smacking his face into Leela's thigh before he pops back up again, clutching his bandaged stomach. "...can't get comfortable, but I can't leave, either. She might _move _or something."

"Yeah, can't miss a twitch, can you?" You study him for a long time. "You really aren't mad? Even though she led you into near-certain death, and ya know, cost you an organ?"

Fry shrugs. "These things happen."

"So you aren't planning to bean her one when she wakes up?" you clarify.

"No. That isn't _exactly_ what I had in mind." Fry tries to raise his eyebrows suggestively, but with the bags under his eyes it just sort of looks like he's stretching them on a torture rack.

"Look, I hate to break this to you, but if you're expecting Leela to throw herself into your arms if-" Fry gives you a piercing look, and you correct yourself. "_When _she wakes up, you got another thing coming."

"I know. I mean, I'm not- she wouldn't be Leela if she did that," Fry admits, tracing a finger in between her knuckles absently. "It doesn't matter. I want her back."

It's a mystery, really, what the human hopes to gain from this round-the-clock vigil. He hasn't robbed anyone in the waiting room yet, even though new people come in with purses full of goodies all the time. But it's probably a good thing he hasn't been out there, though, because then he'd have heard all those questions you guys won't ask in front of him.

_How long 'til they unplug Ponytail, anyway?_

"Don't see how they can, with that buffoon hanging off her like a marmoset twenty-four seven," Hermes told you.

(It turns out that _unplugged _means something a lot different for humans, too.)

"I don't get it," you finally blurt out. "She's not a robot, or immortal or whatever. She's not gonna be around forever. So what's the point of sitting here and waiting? "

"I dunno." Fry takes her limp hand and presses her palm against his cheek, shutting his eyes. Regular meatbag affection is revolting enough, but this… this is downright painful to watch.

"I mean, isn't it just kind of stupid, if you're gonna lose her someday, anyway?"

"I guess," Fry murmurs. He's the only one who doesn't get angry when you ask. Maybe killer space bees make humans ask these questions too, sometimes. "I just know that she makes every _moment _of my life brighter. Just by being there. She just _does_."

You nearly retch. "Whoa-ho-ho, watch the sap, there, saphead."

He doesn't, of course. Fry shifts to sit on the edge of the bed and strokes her cheek, minding the tubes and the dripping sacks full of drugs.

"Just open that beautiful eye for me, okay?" he whispers, touching his lips almost reverently to her horrifically large eyelid. When he pulls away again, he presses his forehead to hers, blinking too fast. Breathing into the back of his wrist.

You fiddle with your finger attachments.

"Ya sure I can't get you anything, kid? Some drugs of the illegal variety?"

"No... thanks, though…" Fry drags a hand under his streaming nose. "Um, actually, if you wouldn't mind sitting there for a minute, I- um, I've had to pee since about… Thursday."

You salute mockingly and cross your feet on the bed. He doesn't even see. He's having some trouble drawing his hand from her cheek.

"I'll be right back," Fry says eventually, standing. "Tell me if she moves or anything. And talk to her. It's supposed to keep her brain stimulated, but the doctor said speak positively, because if we speak positively then she'll think positively in her coma world or whatever, and also-"

"You're gonna pee yourself, idiot." He stops dancing from one foot to the other and disappears inside the attached restroom. You draw your chair closer to Leela's bed and prop your feet up even more. Whoops, you accidentally kick her a little.

"Hey, you. Yeah, you," you mutter to your captain. "I have some stuff I need to talk to you about. Don't go anywhere." Pause to chuckle at your own irony. "See, the kid may have already forgiven and forgotten, but I'm still pretty pissed at you for tryin' to get us killed. And the only thing that could possibly piss me off even more is if you don't wake up and_ pay attention t_o me."

You nudge her with your foot again, a little harder. Oops. "Don't get me wrong, I don't want you to get a swelled head or anything. You already think you're so important, and life can't go on without you. But it will. We'll go to your funeral and pretend to cry, but who's gonna be different? The Professor will laugh like a maniac... Zoidberg will eat Amy's shoes... And I sure as hell won't be lifting a pinky around here. Then we'll get a new captain and start deliveries again. The new guy will probably be a _man. _With _two eyes. _Someone like Zapp Brannigan, he'd be good, wouldn't he?"

Pause to let that burn sizzle. The giant flap of skin over her eye doesn't even twitch. Leela must be dead, but no, the heart monitor says otherwise.

"Point is, the whole freakin' universe will keep spinning without your supervision. Except for_ that one's_ universe." You jerk a thumb toward the restroom door, which Fry's been too anxious to even close all the way. "It'll grind to a screeching stop, and I hope you know that, cyclops. If you die, you'll kill him, and you hear me, it'll be _all your fault._"

A flush from the bathroom. You put your feet down hurriedly and assume an innocent air, humming under your breath, "Nobody knows… the trouble I've seen…" And then louder. "_Nobody knows… _my sorrow."

Fry smacks open the bathroom door, zipping his fly irritably. "For God's sake, Bender, she can hear you. Sing something a little more uplifting."

You glare at him and hiss through your teeth, "_Don't worry. Be happy._"

(Fry _swears _that Leela twitches.)

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**Still not the end. Fun with canon, though!**


	6. Chapter 6

**I absolutely should not have kept you waiting so long for what is a pretty short ending. I sincerely apologize. The last important thing was in the previous chapter, I guess, and I kept thinking I should add more to this one so I didn't keep people waiting for nothing, but finally I decided to just post it, so, enjoy!**

**The reason I've been so busy, if anyone reads author's notes or cares, is that I've been at play practice for four or five hours every night for two weeks. Beauty and the Beast opens this weekend and I am Cogsworth! So excited! If it's not _baroque, _don't fix it! Ahahahaha. Wish me luck, and that I totally don't completely screw up.**

* * *

"Well, I suppose if you _have _to know so badly, I'll tell you what I dreamed." Leela surrenders at last, ironically, to a silent cockpit.

"Hasn't been keeping me up at night," you announce flippantly.

Fry's mouth, on the other hand, almost drops off its hinges. Her sudden declaration is bizarre, considering he gave up nagging her about the dream days ago. It's been a forbidden subject, under-penalty-of-death-glare. Leela had made that clear within the half an hour of waking from her coma.

She laughed and joked along with the rest of you guys, who were practically melted into oozing puddles of relief. Fry held her much longer than what would have flown on any other occasion, but nothing seemed wrong until he handed Leela that ugly little Cyclops toy from the night stand, and she went suddenly silent. She shrank back into his jacket and noticed it draped around her for the first time, glancing from it to its ragged-looking owner and back again in disbelief.

"_Oh, it was kind of cold in here,_" he explained.

She pulled his jacket off her shoulders and cried into it for twenty minutes.

"_Please don't cry_," Fry said, even though he hadn't quite stopped swabbing his own eyes yet. "_You're alive, Leela. You could cry if you were dead._"

"_No one would hear you, though,_" you put in, helpfully.

Leela hiccupped and checked her sobs. At his insistence, she blew her nose on the jacket sleeve, which was already covered with tears and snot. Filthy human gunk. "_Sorry… It's just… I dreamed…_"

And for once in her life, she actually shut up about something. It must have been a hell of a dream, though, because she's obviously been reliving it nightly. She still comes to work with her eye swollen and bloodshot, and even though she was the one who spent two weeks in a coma, she gives _Fry _skittish looks. As if _he _was the ghost.

"Anyway, I don't want you to think I was being rude." Leela continues at present, eye fixed on the starry horizon. She seems eager to get it all out while her voice is steady. "I just wasn't ready to share yet-"

"Still not ready to hear," you comment.

"And I think that now it's been long enough-"

"Not even close."

"And I know you've been dying to-"

"Nope."

Fry punches you and then shakes the pain out of his fist. Then you're banished to the other side of the room as Leela tells her story. Her whole, _long _story.

"I would have explained sooner… I just didn't want anyone to read too much into it," she finishes with a painful attempt at nonchalance. "You know how people try to go all Freud with your fever dreams."

(Fry just sits there and tries not to read too much into the fact that once upon a time, Leela thought he was dead and didn't particularly want to live anymore.)

He clears his throat. "So did you hear anyone else… besides me, I mean? 'Cause Amy was in there, too, some nights, and when I had to get bandages changed and stuff."

"No, it was just your voice. That's all I remember, anyway."

The ship echoes with the quiet conversation that you definitely aren't eavesdropping on, or extending your eyes to see better. Standing at the window, he's taken her hand, and for once Leela hasn't pulled it away.

"Oh, well that's… I mean it's not… I was just always there… it probably doesn't..."

"It was special," Leela admits. She squeezes his hand, briefly but tightly. Then she looks away again, and her eye darkens. "You were the only thing I heard, besides my own deep inner guilt whispering to me that you died and... it was all my fault…"

"That's awful. That's really terrible, um, unless it helped you wake up, or whatever…" Fry trails off anxiously. Leela tries to regain her hand, but it's obvious she won't be getting it back without a fight.

You snicker malevolently, folding your legs as you lean back in your seat lazily. The nice thing about being evil is that no one ever catches you doing anything good. They will never suspect a thing, the morons.

"Well, we're about to land on Milan, planet of the supermodel freak, and I definitely don't want to be seen like this." Leela, who's still powder-pale from the weeks in a hospital bed, stands up from her captain's chair. She surprises Fry into releasing her hand with a quick peck on the cheek. "Bender, take the helm while I put on a little eyeshadow."

You and the meatbag both protest.

"But you don't need make-up," Fry says.

"What are you talking about? I can't steer the ship," you declare broadly, folding your arms across your chest cavity. "I don't know how."

"Fry, shut up. Bender, of course you can. Unless you want us to fly straight into that dwarf star over there." Her bulgy eye meets yours. You intently study one another, each waiting for the other's bluff to crumble.

"Our hospital bills. There was no ambulance fee. Unless the Professor paid it, which you know he didn't." She motions to the chair she has just vacated. "That and someone accidentally bent the steering wheel."

The handles are indeed warped inward. You drop into the chair she's vacated and extend your arms to take the wheel with a great grumbling fanfare.

"Thanks, Bender." She kisses the top of your head with a _clunk_. You grumble harder, refusing to look her way.

_Way to look out for us puny, pathetic, fragile humans, _you imagine she's saying instead. _We hail your mighty heroism and tender compassion._

_Yeah, why don't you shut the hell up? _you respond. _You aren't my problem, meatbags. Maybe I'll fly you into the sun, just for kicks. Fillet of human sounds good tonight._

(But that would burn them, so you don't.)

* * *

**Thanks for reading and reviewing, as well as all the favorites and follows! You know who you are, and I'm sorry if I didn't respond to everybody personally. You guys are a lovely fandom and have been really welcoming, and if I literally ever have free time again I hope I'll be able to write here again. ****:) ****Auf wiedersehen! **


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